The biggest issue I have with said trackers is that they don't allow for judgement calls. Recently for example I was travelling from Arizona back to my home in Colorado, and was on several single lane highways. The speed limit is set at 65 Mph, however you have some people that choose to drive under the speed limit at 60 Mph.
To pass those people you need to speed up, enter the opposite lane of travel, pass the person, then enter back into the correct lane of travel. While you are speeding up to pass the person you go above the allowed speed limit (generally somewhere around 80 Mph) to make sure that you don't stay in the opposite lane of travel to a head-on collision.
With one of those boxes your insurance could now consider you a dangerous driver since you were speeding, and could now ding you, when in reality you were simply passing a slower car.
You could now suggest that I just stay behind the slower car, but with no passing lane for the next 70 miles that would have added a not insignificant amount of time to my already lengthy travel time, and then I haven't even mentioned all of the RV's that are driving 50 Mph because they are dragging a car behind them.
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Safe driving has to be evaluated some other way. I've been involved in only one accident, and I lost control of my car in an attempt to avoid an accident on icy roads and took out a lamp post. (A pick-up truck driver lost control over their vehicle and was sliding towards me while all four of his tires were locked up. My corrective action was an attempt to move out of the way ... ended up hitting a patch of ice instead, at which point I was no longer able to complete my manoeuvre). Even if I had that box in my car it wouldn't have had me driving any differently because I was already driving safely for the conditions present and that box wouldn't have made the difference.
The biggest issue that I have found here in the US (at least compared to Europe) is that it is too simple to get your drivers license, and you can get one at an age where you don't realise the full extent of what it means to control a 2000+ pound metal box at speed. Where you don't yet fully understand the consequences and what it means. Traffic schools/lessons in the US are a joke compared to the rigorous requirements set forth in most of Europe (I'm talking Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium as the ones I am familiar with).
Should insurance companies be able to offer such boxes to people if they want to take them? Maybe, I am still split on whether or not we should allow insurance companies to go down such a slope, because at some point it becomes too easy to then make it mandatory. I don't think such privacy invasion measures should ever be allowed to become mandatory.
I agree with everything you said. I'm not entirely sure if it was offered as a counterpoint to what I said, but if so, please know that it's just because I didn't get too deeply into it.
The pragmatist in me says that because passing on the left is often legal, surely they have some way to identify that, or at least accept it as a deviation from the mean which they would discard.
The cynic in me though believes it exactly as you suggested, that every time you break the speed limit gets added as a 'point' against your record, and enough points eventually causes your premiums to go up.
To pass those people you need to speed up, enter the opposite lane of travel, pass the person, then enter back into the correct lane of travel. While you are speeding up to pass the person you go above the allowed speed limit (generally somewhere around 80 Mph) to make sure that you don't stay in the opposite lane of travel to a head-on collision.
With one of those boxes your insurance could now consider you a dangerous driver since you were speeding, and could now ding you, when in reality you were simply passing a slower car.
You could now suggest that I just stay behind the slower car, but with no passing lane for the next 70 miles that would have added a not insignificant amount of time to my already lengthy travel time, and then I haven't even mentioned all of the RV's that are driving 50 Mph because they are dragging a car behind them.
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Safe driving has to be evaluated some other way. I've been involved in only one accident, and I lost control of my car in an attempt to avoid an accident on icy roads and took out a lamp post. (A pick-up truck driver lost control over their vehicle and was sliding towards me while all four of his tires were locked up. My corrective action was an attempt to move out of the way ... ended up hitting a patch of ice instead, at which point I was no longer able to complete my manoeuvre). Even if I had that box in my car it wouldn't have had me driving any differently because I was already driving safely for the conditions present and that box wouldn't have made the difference.
The biggest issue that I have found here in the US (at least compared to Europe) is that it is too simple to get your drivers license, and you can get one at an age where you don't realise the full extent of what it means to control a 2000+ pound metal box at speed. Where you don't yet fully understand the consequences and what it means. Traffic schools/lessons in the US are a joke compared to the rigorous requirements set forth in most of Europe (I'm talking Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium as the ones I am familiar with).
Should insurance companies be able to offer such boxes to people if they want to take them? Maybe, I am still split on whether or not we should allow insurance companies to go down such a slope, because at some point it becomes too easy to then make it mandatory. I don't think such privacy invasion measures should ever be allowed to become mandatory.